There's no "there" there. 0bama has as few qualifications in terms of education as he does in foreign policy - one probably ghost-written best-seller and a piece of paper that states that he survived his track at a prominent educational institution. It's all glitter, and the fact of the matter is that deep-thinkers such as Brooks are all about glitter and little about substance or we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
"People who talk like us" is a fascinating and very revealing phrase inasmuch as it was uttered within the context of the painfully self-aware New Republic. That is very much a sign of class identification but it is not, I'm afraid, much related to education. The commonality, the class signifier if you like, of this gaggle of pumped-up fools is not an Ivy League diploma but the fervent conviction that its members are somehow entitled to rule their fellow citizens by virtue of sheer girth of ego. Real education is supposed to prevent that sort of thing, not facilitate it.
What we are seeing, in my view, is not any rejection of education or the self-advertised "educated" but the rejection of government of, by, and for celebrity, a status to which even the members of the educated class desperately aspire. 0bama is, to be sure, a romantic and polished public figure. Unfortunately those are not even remotely qualifications for government even though heavily misrepresented as such by people who ought to be educated enough to know better.
I cite as evidence the strange notion that although both of the previous two Presidents have degrees from Ivy League institutions, the fellow who can fly a jet fighter is not considered a member of the educated classes and the fellow who can barely propel a flat-tired bicycle is. There's something very wrong with this definition of class.
Indeed. Great insights, Billthedrill! Thank you so much for writing!